Yahoo buys video chat start-up OnTheAir

Yahoo! said it acquired a five-person video chat company yesterday, the second deal by new Chief Executive Marissa Mayer to bolster the company’s mobile capabilities.

Yahoo! did not disclose the financial terms of its acquisition of OnTheAir but said the team would be joining Yahoo!’s mobile group.

A Yahoo! spokeswoman said that the company had no plans to offer OnTheAir’s existing product, which lets Web users host live video conversations and was launched in March.

OnTheAir is Joining Forces with Yahoo!

One OnTheAir team member, Daniel Hopkins, was working at Google on infrastructure that supports Gmail and Google+, while Mike Kerzhner and Erik Goldman worked previously on products at Apple, according to the OnTheAir website.

The deal marks the second small, mobile-oriented deal since Ms Mayer became CEO earlier this year.

In October, Yahoo! acquired Stamped, a New York-based mobile startup that allows consumers to share information about favourite restaurants and music on their smartphones.

Ms Mayer, a former Google executive, has said that her top priority is to create a coherent mobile strategy for Yahoo! and that she intends for at least half of the company’s technical workforce to be working on mobile products.